thread startermacrumors G3

I would be very surprised if an nail gun had an auto mode, surely that'd be a HUGE safety risk

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that's what I thought... the ones I've used didn't have an 'auto' setting, and you had to have them on a surface, and push them down before they'll fire. If they had an 'auto' mode, then surely they'd as dangerous as a gun, especially in the hands of some not very smart 'brickie'.

6 nails though.... it'd be like a real life 'Pinhead' from Hellraiser wouldn't it... heheh one hell of a Halloween party costume! heheh

I'd like to know how in the heck he did it. It doesn't sound like any nail gun I have ever used. Perhaps it's very old one or something. Nail guns I have used only shoot one nail per pull of the trigger, and there is also a safety switch that requires it to be pressed down on something.

macrumors member

Automatic or not, they were in the back of his scull and spine. Try poking yourself in the back of your head, now think of doing that with something the size and weight of a power drill -- oh, and it hurts.

Those x-rays look like someone waltzed up behind him and let him have it.

macrumors 6502

Automatic or not, they were in the back of his scull and spine. Try poking yourself in the back of your head, now think of doing that with something the size and weight of a power drill -- oh, and it hurts.

Those x-rays look like someone waltzed up behind him and let him have it.

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Yeah, I can barely brush my hair back there. It gets even harder as your hand moves farther back away from the skull surface, which it seems like it would need to do to be holding the thing at the right angle.

macrumors P6

That is an amazing story, an angel watching over him. I'm also surprised that he's not paralyzed by the nail that hit his spinal column. Can't imagine why the gun would have an automatic setting either.

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

We need to ban nail guns, now.
We need to subject automatic nail guns to a $200 federal tax, and stop the importation of new automatic nail guns into the country.
We need to have background checks and 10 day cooling off periods for people that want to buy nail guns.
We need to have a loaded nail chamber indicator on new nail guns sold.
We need to have Smart nail gun technology that only allows the owner to fire the nail gun.

Police said Gordon McKay, 51, died instantly when he fell into the chipper.

Detectives believe McKay was trying to clear a jam in the chipper. He reportedly climbed into the chipper and kicked a large bundle of branches when the machine pulled half his body through the mechanism.

macrumors 6502a

As mactastic mentioned, I've never heard of an automatic nail gun in the sense you think of a machine gun. What this is probably referring to is a mechanism that allows the gun to fire by depressing the safety. This allows you to hold down the trigger and slap the gun against a surface to fire. It makes for extremely rapid progress, but people have been known to nail right across their hand or foot while nailing off a stretch.

That guy didn't do that to himself and if the police believe for one moment that he did, then they are seriously messed up. It would require picking the gun up and tapping it against your neck six times in order to do that. You would never have the gun behind your head like that for any purpose while working. No accident would fire the gun six times. Someone did this to him. Possibly an argument. But not an accident at all.

macrumors 6502a

Ok, if there is any way this happened accidentally, I think I've come up with a likely scenario. The article says he slipped. He has two nails through the right side of his skull and four through the back.

Possibly, somehow, as he fell, the gun or his arm caught on something so that it was positioned behind his head. Now to actually get the gun to fire six times in rapid succession seems complicated, but I have seen a gun recoil after firing into a hard surface. Now if he is holding the gun loosely, it is possible that the gun recoiled, lifting itself far enough off his head to reactivate the safety. Gravity then caused the gun to fall back against his head, firing again and recoiling again due to the hardness of his skull. This happened 4 times before his head slumped over when he fired 2 to the side of his skull as the gun slipped off. As you can see in the x-ray, the 2 on the side were much less accurate.

However, that seems like an incredibly impossible sequence anyhow, and I still can't imagine that that isn't the result of foul play.

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